Map has maximum size avaliable in the editor.
There is main island, few smaller islands and some other underwater objects. Some places can be reached only when your flying or diving skills are high enough. There's also a plot, and you can actually "win" the game.

To build up flying skill you need to fly or climb above certain altitude. You need to use trees or other high objects first, then you can build kites - each kite increase your flying skill with every passing day. Finally, you can use wings and/or glider.

Beehive is very important objects - you can gather wax and honey, two new materials crucial for making new items. Try to combine them with cauldron (a new item, yes) and fire, and maybe some other materials, and see what you get. I made some research prior to making this mod, and I think combinations are not too diffcult to find.
Bees are difficult to kill, and the best way to get rid of using smoke bombs.

Dead bees are instects too, so they should be more useful. Maybe... Maybe add possibility of cooking insect parts? It will be much harder to cook them (you know, cooking skill in massive mod). It is really great idea. And maybe using stone/knife you will be able to make insect parts from dead bees? Like 10 dead bees - 1 insect parts.
They are really good ideas.

Most of our tech-based approaches to flying involve powering your way through the air. That is, get enough thrust behind you, generate some lift, and you are indisputably airborn.

However, this is not the way flying typically happens in the world around us. . .

What if a mod were to utilize the potential for air details showing air thermal columns (for lift) little eddies, shears, etc.? Then, perhaps with some subtly colored or textured air, flying would be as much a matter of finding the currents going the way you wish to go, catching a thermal for height, etc. as it would in building the device(s) needed to take you there?

Anyone might start out figuring out that there are more fish to be caught on one side of the island, just by trial and error (or dumb luck) but at some point they gain enough experience at "reading the waters" to understand not only *why*there is such a difference in numbers of fish, but also *where* and perhaps *when* the best fishing spots will be accessible.

This would give you a "green" flight that could be low-tech and scalable to an island. (Building even a bi-plane sort of falls into irrelevancy if your whole island is just long enough for a runway! "So, hotshot? Just where are you going to fly???")

It also provides an answer to the experience problem. If you are relying on tech for flight, it isn't so much your experience as it is the quality/level of the tech that determines how far or high or fast you could fly. In this scenario, advanced fliers might actually be able to "see" more in the air around them--thus giving them more access to the air dynamics that allow them to fly.

I'm thinking of a parallel to the "graphic options" which will allow you to show more or less detail in the grass, air, water, etc.--this would not be gained through an option, of course, but rather "unlocked" by increasing skill levels.

So someone moderately skilled in these aerodynamics might be able to better judge whether it is likely to jump across that chasm and actually make it to the other side. Seeing a major air current going the wrong way half-way across would lead you to look for a better jump point.

I would think that this would complement the assist jump/kite/glide used in this mod. It would introduce a whole new level of enticing complexity--figuring out just how to "fly over" that steep cliff would not only be a matter of having the right tech, but of scouting out the air currents/wind patterns, etc. at various points so that you can roughly plan out your mountain crossing.

Thinking of the arcade (Sonic, Mario, etc.) spots where you get an extra lift at a particular point, or have to negotiate a fan blowing toward you, etc. You wouldn't be able to make the crossing successfully with either just the tech or just the air-reading--the better you are at integrating these, the more you will be able to do with your "flying."

In the water, you could do something similar in terms of your "balancing out" so that your buoyancy is just right for the depth you are trying to reach. You also would need to deal with currents (which might sweep food--or things that consider you food--right by your front door).

Again, the more you know, the more visual feedback you get, and the better your chances of doing what you wanted.

Consider the role that the ocean currents play in deciding just what will thrive where. . . it is entirely possible, for example, that one side of the island is packed with fish of all sizes, predators as well as prey, yet the other side has only a few scattered small fish. Think of the advantage (experience level) a fisherman, diver or underwater farmer who could "read" those currents would have!

After all, in some deep-ocean islands huge currents rush through, either with the tidal changes, or just to keep refilling a larger bay with water that all has to pass through a relatively small point.

So one possible and interesting map might include a fog-shrouded island of great lore which you would need to ride the currents underwater to reach, but to ride the air currents to return!

After playing a while in adventure mode, I've saved the game, load it next day, and something strange started to happen. My CPU is at 100% taken by stranded, game is laggy, and it's almost impossible to play it.
I've tried to change some graphic settings, with no luck, same thing... Started game from beggining... all is ok... played a while, saved, loaded for test and it's ok... but not for long, next save after some time, loaded... it started again burning my cpu, game laggy.
Don't know what is causing it.
I'm playing on 2GHz Pentium 4, 1GB RAM, GF 5700 FX 256.

I think I made a mistake when placing objects. Or maybe there is a memory leak in mod scripts? I think the former. I suspect somewhere in the ocean, fish keep breeding, until there is too many objects for engine to handle it. I don't know any debug functions that could help me solve this problem.
I've read your post about aerodynamics, but I don't know how to implement a thrust in Stranded (believe me, I tried). In other words, I don't think it's possible to gain speed while airborne. That's why flying in my mod is more like extended jumps. Also, I don't see a way to implement air currents.
I think to implement your (very good) suggestion one would need a different engine

I've made some investigation and as I see all animals are breeding without any limits... Those resp sites have no max limit of units breed set or something like that.
When I've made some trick with editing my save game in map editor and when I've deleted those huge amounts of monkeys, birds of all kind, kiwis, crabs, lions and many more game got "back on track" and with no laggy behavior and no CPU burning but when animals again spawned to much it all happens again.